Page 190 - the-three-musketeers

Her carriage was that of a queen or a goddess; her eyes,
which cast the brilliancy of emeralds, were perfectly beau-
tiful, and yet were at the same time full of sweetness and
majesty.
Her mouth was small and rosy; and although her un-
derlip, like that of all princes of the House of Austria,
protruded slightly beyond the other, it was eminently lovely
in its smile, but as profoundly disdainful in its contempt.
Her skin was admired for its velvety softness; her hands
and arms were of surpassing beauty, all the poets of the time
singing them as incomparable.
Lastly, her hair, which, from being light in her youth, had
become chestnut, and which she wore curled very plainly,
and with much powder, admirably set off her face, in which
the most rigid critic could only have desired a little less
rouge, and the most fastidious sculptor a little more fine-
ness in the nose.
Buckingham remained for a moment dazzled. Never had
Anne of Austria appeared to him so beautiful, amid balls,
fetes, or carousals, as she appeared to him at this moment,
dressed in a simple robe of white satin, and accompanied by
Donna Estafania— the only one of her Spanish women who
had not been driven from her by the jealousy of the king or
by the persecutions of Richelieu.
Anne of Austria took two steps forward. Buckingham
threw himself at her feet, and before the queen could pre-
vent him, kissed the hem of her robe.
‘Duke, you already know that it is not I who caused you
to be written to.’

190 The Three Musketeers